Since my post seems to be the one causing confusion, I'll provide an example of what I meant:

If I run for 45 minutes, I'll burn (give or take) 500 calories above my BMR for that 45 minutes. If I do my strength training routine for 45 minutes, I will be burning about 120 calories above my BMR because my heart rate will not be elevated. But in the longer term, because of the way strength training increases muscle capacity, EPOC (as mentioned earlier), and since muscle cells require more energy to function than fat cells, my BMR will increase and I'll burn more calories that way.

tl;dr: ST burns calories over a long time, cardio burns calories over a short time.

I understood this as "strength training burns calories by increasing muscle capacity and increasing your BMR, not directly like cardio does. Even the token amount given by SP is wrong in my opinion" If you think I grossly misunderstood, I apologize... but as it stands, I believe my post was warranted.

ALORTA: Just curious. Which posts state that lifting "doesn't burn calories directly"? and that lifting "only acts to the increased metabolism and muscle mass"?

LEC358 stated that "strength training doesn't directly burn calories the same way that cardio does."

IAMSHE-RA: "Strength training adds muscle and the more muscle you have the more you burn!"

ALBERTJON stated "I was not directly burning all that many calories."

The point is not that strength-training or weight-lifting does not burn calories directly; rather, it doesn't burn as many calories in the same way or immediately as cardio does. But according to many articles I have read, such as one on bodybuilding.com, weight-lifting workouts will continue to burn calories long after the workout: "This is known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. EPOC occurs because your body needs energy to repair your muscles after you've challenged them. It occurs at a much higher rate after intense weight-training than after low-intensity, steady-state cardiovascular training." -- www.bodybuilding.com/fun/ask-the-ripped-dude-cardio-before-or-after-weights.html

Yes, I know the HRM isn't a good estimate, but its something. My strength atm is Chalean Xtreme vids, just for reference. I was responding to the posts that said that it "doesn't burn calories directly", only acts to the increased metabolism and muscle mass (aka, that lifting doesn't burn calories, just builds muscle), which is not correct.

SPARK_COACH_JEN: Good explanation. And therein lies the problem of someone trying to access how many calories one burns while strength-training. Time between sets, number of reps, intensity of the lifting, amount of weights, etc. would have an impact, too. Some people don't even log estimated calories burned lifting, some just use the circuit-training calories burned for their strength training total, and some use guestimations from on-line sites that suggest calories burned based on certain factors. For me, since I believe that strength-training (and its results) does burn calories, I came up with some number but know it is primarily guestimation.

I use my HRM while doing ChaLean Xtreme... Your muscles are still working, so why wouldn't they require oxygen and glucose (read; calories)? Every time a muscle sarcomere moves (contracts or relaxes), it requires ATP (energy)... and the body uses the amount of muscle fibers (made up of rows of said sarcomeres) needed to complete the task. If you are doing challenging strength training, most of your fibers are engaged (the full potential of the muscle). That requires energy; not as much as running around, etc, but to say it doesn't burn anything is like saying that a crane that isn't moving (around the lot) isn't using energy (fuel or battery) to lift I-beams or whatever.

IMADIVASTILL: That is a good question and one that I have tried to research several times when I first started my current exercise regimen a few years ago. I wore a Polar HRM a few times and noticed, at least the way that I did my strength-training/weight lifting, that I was not directly burning all that many calories. I eventually hit upon giving myself 4 calories burned per minute of strength-training.

However, actually, when a person has a good strength-training session and "tears" the muscles, later, such as when the body is at rest during sleep, additional calories are being burned while the body rebuilds the muscle. So it is at best a guestimation, in my opinion, whatever number we decide that strength-training/weight-lifting burns. I wouldn't be surprised that maybe I am burning more than 4 calories a minute, if I give myself credit for the body repairing the muscles. On the other hand, I do my strength-training in old man fashion, so maybe I should be only allotting myself 3 calories per minute.

My advice: arrive at and stick with a number as suggested my SparkPeople or posters on SP or research you do on the Net. I have found dozens of sites that purport to give calorie burn for almost every exercise there is.

Oh yeah! Strength training adds muscle and the more muscle you have the more you burn! Muscle incinerates your metabolism! Now you may wonder, should I lift light weights at high reps or heavy weights and low reps? I've had success with both training methods. When I was younger light and high worked best for me, but now that I'm older I have more success with heavy and low. Experiment with both until you figure out what works best for you. And always listen to your body. Don't lift more than you can handle and always ask a trainer to show you proper form for an exercise or to provide a spot if the weight is very heavy. Most importantly though, have fun with your training!!

(Ignoring the fact that body pump is more cardio than ST for the moment)

First, strength training doesn't directly burn calories the same way that cardio does. Strength training increases muscle capacity (and eventually muscle fibers) such that your BMR increases so your body needs more calories to perform its basic functions over time. Sparkpeople (wrongly, IMO) gives a token amount of calories for strength exercises tracked so you can track the individual exercises and get calories tracked that way.

Now I love Body Pump as much as the next person, but it's not strength training because the weights are too low and reps too high so I look at it as more cardio/endurance training. So when I track on here, I use the circuit training category or similar.

I took at body pump class which provided strength training. I worked every muscle for an hour with a bar, weights, step platform,etc. How do I calculate how many calories I burn each class to add to my exercise tracker?

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